Chapter LII

INVOLVING A SERIOUS CHANGE IN THE

WELLER FAMILY, AND THE UNTIMELY

DOWNFALL OF Mr. STIGGINS

onsidering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from

introducing either Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young

couple, until they were fully prepared to expect them, and

wishing to spare Arabella's feelings as much as possible, Mr.

Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in the

neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young

men should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To

this they very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly

acted upon; Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking

themselves to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of

the Borough, behind the bar door of which their names had in

other days very often appeared at the head of long and complex

calculations worked in white chalk.

'Dear me, Mr. Weller,' said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam

at the door.

'Dear me I vish it vos, my dear,' replied Sam, dropping behind,

to let his master get out of hearing. 'Wot a sweet-lookin' creetur

you are, Mary!'

'Lot, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!' said Mary. 'Oh!

don't, Mr. Weller."

'Don't what, my dear?' said Sam.

'Why, that,' replied the pretty housemaid. 'Lor, do get along

with you.' Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed

Sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and

put her hair quite out of curl.

'And prevented what I was going to say, besides,' added Mary.

'There's a letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn't

gone away, half an hour, when it came; and more than that, it's got

"immediate," on the outside.'

'Vere is it, my love?' inquired Sam.

'I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost

long before this,' replied Mary. 'There, take it; it's more than you

deserve.'

With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and

fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced

the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and

handed it to Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry

and devotion.

'My goodness me!' said Mary, adjusting the tucker, and feigning

unconsciousness, 'you seem to have grown very fond of it all at

once.'

To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning

of which no description could convey the faintest idea of; and,

sitting himself down beside Mary on a window-seat, opened the

letter and glanced at the contents.

'Hollo!' exclaimed Sam, 'wot's all this?'

'Nothing the matter, I hope?' said Mary, peeping over his

shoulder.

'Bless them eyes o' yourn!' said Sam, looking up.

'Never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter,'

said the pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes

twinkle with such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly

irresistible.

Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows:―

'Markis Gran

'By Dorken

'Wens

dy

.

'My dear Sammle,

'I am werry sorry to have the pleasure of being a Bear of ill

news your Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin

too long on the damp grass in the rain a hearing of a shepherd

who warnt able to leave off till late at night owen to his having

vound his-self up vith brandy and vater and not being able to stop

his-self till he got a little sober which took a many hours to do the

doctor says that if she'd svallo'd varm brandy and vater artervards

insted of afore she mightn't have been no vus her veels wos

immedetly greased and everythink done to set her agoin as could

be inwented your father had hopes as she vould have vorked

round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she

took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never

see and notvithstandin that the drag wos put on directly by the

medikel man it wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at

twenty minutes afore six o'clock yesterday evenin havin done the

journey wery much under the reglar time vich praps was partly

owen to her haven taken in wery little luggage by the vay your

father says that if you vill come and see me Sammy he vill take it

as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely Samivel n. b. he vill

have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right and as there is sich a

many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont object of course

he vill not Sammy for I knows him better so he sends his dooty in

which I join and am Samivel infernally yours

'Tony Veller.'

'Wot a incomprehensible letter,' said Sam; 'who's to know wot it

means, vith all this he-ing and I-ing! It ain't my father's writin',

'cept this here signater in print letters; that's his.'

'Perhaps he got somebody to write it for him, and signed it

himself afterwards,' said the pretty housemaid.

'Stop a minit,' replied Sam, running over the letter again, and

pausing here and there, to reflect, as he did so. 'You've hit it. The

gen'l'm'n as wrote it wos a-tellin' all about the misfortun' in a

proper vay, and then my father comes a-lookin' over him, and

complicates the whole concern by puttin' his oar in. That's just the

wery sort o' thing he'd do. You're right, Mary, my dear.'

Having satisfied himself on this point, Sam read the letter all

over, once more, and, appearing to form a clear notion of its

contents for the first time, ejaculated thoughtfully, as he folded it

up―

'And so the poor creetur's dead! I'm sorry for it. She warn't a

bad-disposed 'ooman, if them shepherds had let her alone. I'm

wery sorry for it.'

Mr. Weller uttered these words in so serious a manner, that the

pretty housemaid cast down her eyes and looked very grave.

'Hows'ever,' said Sam, putting the letter in his pocket with a

gentle sigh, 'it wos to be―and wos, as the old lady said arter she'd

married the footman. Can't be helped now, can it, Mary?'

Mary shook her head, and sighed too.

'I must apply to the hemperor for leave of absence,' said Sam.

Mary sighed again―the letter was so very affecting.

'Good-bye!' said Sam.

'Good-bye,' rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head

away.

'Well, shake hands, won't you?' said Sam.

The pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a

housemaid's, was a very small one, and rose to go.

'I shan't be wery long avay,' said Sam.

'You're always away,' said Mary, giving her head the slightest

possible toss in the air. 'You no sooner come, Mr. Weller, than you

go again.'

Mr. Weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and

entered upon a whispering conversation, which had not proceeded

far, when she turned her face round and condescended to look at

him again. When they parted, it was somehow or other

indispensably necessary for her to go to her room, and arrange the

cap and curls before she could think of presenting herself to her

mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to perform,

bestowing many nods and smiles on Sam over the banisters as she

tripped upstairs.

'I shan't be avay more than a day, or two, sir, at the furthest,'

said Sam, when he had communicated to Mr. Pickwick the

intelligence of his father's loss.

'As long as may be necessary, Sam,' replied Mr. Pickwick, 'you

have my full permission to remain.'

Sam bowed.

'You will tell your father, Sam, that if I can be of any assistance

to him in his present situation, I shall be most willing and ready to

lend him any aid in my power,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Thank'ee, sir,' rejoined Sam. 'I'll mention it, sir.'

And with some expressions of mutual good-will and interest,

master and man separated.

It was just seven o'clock when Samuel Weller, alighting from

the box of a stage-coach which passed through Dorking, stood

within a few hundred yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a

cold, dull evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and

the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant marquis

seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was

wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the

wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed;

of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not

one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate.

Seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary

questions, Sam walked softly in, and glancing round, he quickly

recognised his parent in the distance.

The widower was seated at a small round table in the little

room behind the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed

upon the fire. The funeral had evidently taken place that day, for

attached to his hat, which he still retained on his head, was a

hatband measuring about a yard and a half in length, which hung

over the top rail of the chair and streamed negligently down. Mr.

Weller was in a very abstracted and contemplative mood.

Notwithstanding that Sam called him by name several times, he

still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet

countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son's placing

the palm of his hand on his shoulder.

'Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, 'you're welcome.'

'I've been a-callin' to you half a dozen times,' said Sam, hanging

his hat on a peg, 'but you didn't hear me.'

'No, Sammy,' replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at

the fire. 'I was in a referee, Sammy.'

'Wot about?' inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to the fire.

'In a referee, Sammy,' replied the elder Mr. Weller, 'regarding

her, Samivel.' Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of

Dorking churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred

to the late Mrs. Weller.

'I wos a-thinkin', Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with

great earnestness, over his pipe, as if to assure him that however

extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was

nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. 'I wos a-thinkin',

Sammy, that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone.'

'Vell, and so you ought to be,' replied Sam.

Mr. Weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again

fastening his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and

mused deeply.

'Those wos wery sensible observations as she made, Sammy,'

said Mr. Weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long

silence.

'Wot observations?' inquired Sam.

'Them as she made, arter she was took ill,' replied the old

gentleman. 'Wot was they?'

'Somethin' to this here effect. "Veller," she says, "I'm afeered

I've not done by you quite wot I ought to have done; you're a wery

kind-hearted man, and I might ha' made your home more

comfortabler. I begin to see now," she says, "ven it's too late, that

if a married 'ooman vishes to be religious, she should begin vith

dischargin' her dooties at home, and makin' them as is about her

cheerful and happy, and that vile she goes to church, or chapel, or

wot not, at all proper times, she should be wery careful not to con-

wert this sort o' thing into a excuse for idleness or self-indulgence.

I have done this," she says, "and I've vasted time and substance on

them as has done it more than me; but I hope ven I'm gone, Veller,

that you'll think on me as I wos afore I know'd them people, and as

I raly wos by natur." "Susan," says I―I wos took up wery short by

this, Samivel; I von't deny it, my boy―"Susan," I says, "you've

been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don't say nothin' at all

about it; keep a good heart, my dear; and you'll live to see me

punch that 'ere Stiggins's head yet." She smiled at this, Samivel,'

said the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, 'but she died

arter all!'

'Vell,' said Sam, venturing to offer a little homelyconsolation,

after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old

gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side, and

solemnly smoking, 'vell, gov'nor, ve must all come to it, one day or

another.'

'So we must, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller the elder.

'There's a Providence in it all,' said Sam.

'O' course there is,' replied his father, with a nod of grave

approval. 'Wot 'ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy?'

Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this

reflection, the elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and

stirred the fire with a meditative visage.

While the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-

looking cook, dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about,

in the bar, glided into the room, and bestowing many smirks of

recognition upon Sam, silently stationed herself at the back of his

father's chair, and announced her presence by a slight cough, the

which, being disregarded, was followed by a louder one.

'Hollo!' said the elder Mr. Weller, dropping the poker as he

looked round, and hastily drew his chair away. 'Wot's the matter

now?'

'Have a cup of tea, there's a good soul,' replied the buxom

female coaxingly. 'I von't,' replied Mr. Weller, in a somewhat

boisterous manner. 'I'll see you―' Mr. Weller hastily checked

himself, and added in a low tone, 'furder fust.'

'Oh, dear, dear! How adwersity does change people!' said the

lady, looking upwards.

'It's the only thing 'twixt this and the doctor as shall change my

condition,' muttered Mr. Weller.

'I really never saw a man so cross,' said the buxom female.

'Never mind. It's all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith

vich the penitent school-boy comforted his feelin's ven they

flogged him,' rejoined the old gentleman.

The buxom female shook her head with a compassionate and

sympathising air; and, appealing to Sam, inquired whether his

father really ought not to make an effort to keep up, and not give

way to that lowness of spirits.

'You see, Mr. Samuel,' said the buxom female, 'as I was telling